


Heifers and Elephants

by bunn



Series: On the Road North [2]
Category: Eagle of the Ninth - Rosemary Sutcliff, Eagle of the Ninth Series - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: Cows, Gen, Humor, Roman Britain, romans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-31
Updated: 2011-10-31
Packaged: 2017-10-25 03:14:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/271121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunn/pseuds/bunn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snapshot of Marcus and Esca on their long journey to the Wall.  Marcus reminisces about a memorable sight he saw in Rome.  Esca thinks Marcus is having him on.</p><p>With thanks to what may be the world's loudest herd of small protesting heifers which shouted very noisily at me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heifers and Elephants

The sky was an unexpectedly deep and cloudless blue, and warmth still lingered in the spring air although the sun was sinking.

“Esca, shall we camp by the road tonight?” Marcus suggested. “The bed at that inn last night was a dreadful thing, I am still scratching. And the weather has turned dry at last.”

“A good thought” Esca answered, cocking his head and looking west towards the hills “I do not think we shall have rain before the morning. Let us not stop here though: we should go on a little way.”

“What is wrong with here?” Marcus asked, reining in Vipsania and looking down at the broad meadow that spread out on one side of the road, which seemed to him an excellent campsite.

“Heifers!” Esca answered “Over there, look, behind the fence?”

As if in answer to Esca’s words, the young cows in the field behind the closely woven hazel hurdles were getting to their feet and as the two riders passed them, they began to moo loudly. Soon all of them were standing facing the road, mooing all at once, some calling with deep voices, some braying shrilly as the horses passed by. Vipsania gave them a deeply suspicious look and broke into a trot, and Esca on Minna followed.

“I see your point!” Marcus half-shouted over the din. “Mithras! Who knew cows could be so loud!” As they got a little further away and could hear each other speak once more, Esca said:

“They are fresh from market, I expect. At that age they are often noisy! I thought you grew up on a farm?”

“I did, but we do not keep so many cattle in the Etruscan hills as you do up here in the North. Our farm was mostly olives. Well, olives and wheat, vines and goats... Mithras! I can still hear them! They sound like a herd of elephants!”

Esca looked curious “What are elephants?”

“Elephants...” Marcus laughed “How to describe an elephant? They are big grey animals with long noses that they use as hands. Very big, like a building walking. They have them at the Colosseum in Rome, sometimes. I met one there once : it picked a cake right from my hand with its nose, and then it trumpeted like those little cows, only even louder.”

“You are joking? Hands on their noses?”

“Honest as the sunlight... they have a hand on the end of their nose. And feet like treetrunks.”

Esca gave Marcus a very dubious look. “This would be a fine spot to stop.” he said “Much more peaceful.”

“No, really! Elephants. Very noisy.” Marcus unloaded his kit from Vipsania and began to collect wood for a fire, while Esca rubbed down the horses and checked their feet.

Later, after they had eaten, and the sun had fallen below the hills in the west, leaving only a golden glow along the edge of a deep blue sky where the first stars were pricking into light, they sat for a little while by the fire, talking, before it was time to sleep . Marcus returned to the subject of elephants. He peeled a flat piece of bark from a chunk of firewood, and with a burnt stick from the fire, tried to draw an elephant on the smooth white inside of it.

He held it out to show Esca in the reddish flicker of the firelight. “An elephant!” he announced. He drew a rough stick-man standing next to it. “This is how tall they are. Huge things. ”

“ You _are_ joking with me” said Esca again, leaning forward to look. “ _Nothing_ is that big. Is it?”

“They put armour on them, here, and here” Marcus jabbed with the charred stick. “and sometimes they put a little house on their backs as well, with archers”.

“The Eagles use those things in battle?”

“Oh yes. I never saw one fight but the word is they are terrifying. Not the safest ally to have on your flank, but much worse to be facing them. The Divine Claudius rode one when he invaded Britannia.”

Esca leant forward and delicately measured the height of the stick man with his fingertip against the roughly drawn elephant.

“Clychau uffern!” he said. “ No wonder he won!”

**Author's Note:**

> Esca is swearing in Modern Welsh. I’m sorry about that, but Brythonic swearing dictionaries seem to be unaccountably missing from the internet. :-D It means ( I hope) ‘Hell’s Bells’.


End file.
